The Place That Never Forgets
by Stuka
Summary: Like whispers in the night, in that place that never forgets, even when those people do. It starts with a horse. Eventual slash Goodkat/Slevin Boss/Rabbi. This story has chan-ish undertones. You've been duly warned.
1. Prologue

- Prologue-

Chain reactions are curious things. People, places, and emotions connected by the thread of circumstance that spiral through time in ever-widening ecliptics of consequence.

_You are getting philosophical in your old age, Goodkat. It is not circumstance if you orchestrate the entire debacle! You just went soft._

The man grinned at himself in the mirror. His conscience spoke with Slevin's voice.

_Shut up, kid, and let me soliloquise. Maybe not circumstance then. However, this is more fun. Like dominoes!_

Mr. Goodkat was no stranger to chain reactions. Almost twenty years ago, he faced a moral quandary, made an out-of-character decision, and as a result, he now waited in a badly decorated hotel room for the telephone to ring. Then it rang and the possibilities coalesced into a helix of probability.

Goodkat palmed the phone from its hook.


	2. Chapter 1

A/N: My most humble thanks to Colourful-Mess for whipping this into shape. Please review. And I obviously don't own Lucky Number Slevin. If I did do you think I'd have enough time to be here?

The job was harder than he expected. Not the legwork. All he had to do was wait for the man –

_His name is Max. No, he has no name. He is unimportant. He is not the mark. _

- to get out of the car. It was simple to climb in and drive away. What was not so simple was the matter of the boy –

_Henry, the mark. His name is Henry._

- in the passenger seat that looked at him with a hound's sad eyes.

_If it were easy, I wouldn't have been called. If it were easy, those pretentious motherfuckers would do it themselves, and he wouldn't be looking at me like that. He cannot know...can he?_

Uncertainty is the enemy of action and Goodkat took great pride in being a man of action.

"Get out of the car kid."

_Tanquam ovis, indeed. What perfect obedience._

And then the kid turned around.

Most people fear death. Goodkat was accustomed to it, the acrid tang of discovered mortality. It was his trade, delivering people's worst fear. He was not, however, accustomed to nearly prescient cinnamon eyes that seemed to weigh his soul and find it wanting.

_What soul Goodkat? _

And for the thousandth time he wondered why his conscience spoke with _that _voice.

_Because mine can make you feel like shit the easiest. Don't dodge the question. What soul? Did you grow one after you killed me?_

Goodkat refused to carry on a conversation with a ghost when the living pressed for his attention.

_Ignoring me won't make me disappear._

The boy looked like something that should have been on a cereal box, all shaggy hair, knowing eyes, and cheekbones that would be knife-sharp when adolescence finished chewing through the last of his puppy fat.

_Take your hormones out of the equation dumbass. You're being paid to ensure his adolescence never ends. Can you do it? It's simple enough. Look in his eyes and pull the trigger._

His finger tightened around the steel crescent imperceptibly, knowing to the fraction of an ounce how much pressure it would require before spiraling the boy into the past tense.

He found himself removing his sunglasses, struck by the sudden imperative that this death be more personal.

It was the first job he ever botched.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, a ghost crowed its victory into the setting sun.


	3. Chapter 2

A/N: My most humble thanks to Colourful-Mess for whipping this into shape. Please review. And I obviously don't own Lucky Number Slevin. If I did do you think I'd have enough time to be here? Hell no! I'd be busy rearranging the boyos into all sorts of positions! Oh wait...

Chapter 2

The kid is too quiet in the back seat. Goodkat would normally be troubled by the silence, but right now he is too busy discovering that his moral center, like a caramel left in a hot car, is oozing its conscientious filling across the dashboard of his normally well ordered, morally vacuumed and freshly polished mind.

_You? Having a moral center? You forget, I know your center. Don't lie to yourself._

Goodkat mentally swats that thought away, more than annoyed by the discovery of this moral compass in the middle of the best paying job on the East Coast.

_Only you would consider growing a conscience inconvenient, Kitten. To most people it is painful or liberating. For you it is simply _inconvenient_. _

Goodkat can almost hear that tenor chuckle vibrating through his skull and something in the center of him flinches.

"I want to go home."

_No you don't kid. What 's left of your mother is decorating your kitchen walls._

"Neither one of us are going home kid, not for a long time."

_Why not tell him Goodkat? Do you think it won't be on the news? Why not tell him what you were hired to do? _

In an effort to forestall any more questions from boy or ghost, Goodkat turns the volume dial on the radio and let the music drown out the resultant whimpers his statement causes.

He can't tell if they come from the back seat or his.


	4. Chapter 3

A/N: My most humble thanks to Colourful-Mess for whipping this into shape. Please review. And I obviously don't own Lucky Number Slevin. If I did do you think I'd have enough time to be here? Hell no! I'd be busy rearranging the boyos into all sorts of positions! Oh wait...

Chapter 3

Goodkat hated diners. They were too noisy, too crowded –

_Too full of life? Really now, Kitten, I'm expecting a _Bah Humbug _any moment now!_

Goodkat gritted his teeth. He hated Dickens, but not nearly as much as he hated knowing that a ghost was smirking at him. He scanned the room out of habit and cursed the unreliable access to the exit. Why people insisted on blocking them with this inane need to chatter in place -

_Jealous? I tried to tell you, killing people for a living kills any chance for a life._

_I am NOT jealous. I need to leave quickly if the kid decides to make a scene._

_It's not just a river in Egypt, you know._

He ignored the taunt and tried to remember why he was here in the first place.

_Because you figured that if you hadn't killed the boy – _

"Henry." He hadn't meant to say that aloud, but it was suddenly important to him that the boy had a name.

_- Excuse me, Henry, then you should at least feed him._

The boy – no, Henry - looked up at him over a plate of waffles that were being slowly poked to a messy death by golden-maple exsanguination, but remained uneaten.

_It's like _The Death of Marat_ done in syrup._

_A bit morbid to be pondering over breakfast, but I'm glad some of my culture didn't go to waste._

_To say it was wasted implies the capacity for usefulness. Only you would dove-tail art and assassination. _

_I was attempting to give you an appreciation for beauty and human life._

_Explain to me, please, how an assassination equals appreciation for life and beauty?_

_Men live and die, but beauty lives forever, and yet men create such works of beauty that we weep to behold them. They would not exist but for the life of men._

Goodkat mentally chided himself for conversing with a figment of his own imagination and found Henry looking at him quizzically.

"Sir?"

_Jesus, he's terrified of me._

_You do have that effect on people, mon chaton. _

.

He scrambled to find something to say.

_So you ARE worried what he thinks of you! _

Goodkat slammed the lid of his mind shut.

"I am not going anywhere anytime soon, so you might as well ask whatever it is that has you poking your breakfast to death instead of eating it."

A chuckle ricocheted inside his skull and Goodkat felt the beginning twinge of a migraine behind his eyes.

_Really now, was such an inquisitive _carte blanche_ wise Kitten?_

"Did you kill my parents?"

This was easy enough. At least he didn't have to tell him they were dead. Mass media was a grand thing. One overzealous reporter had even managed photos of the bodies. He had watched as something died behind the boy's eyes, and felt an emotion almost like pity. Or maybe it was indigestion. Either way, it had been short-lived.

"No kid, I didn't." The 'But I know who did" remained unspoken, but palpable.

"You were hired to kill me though, weren't you?"

Goodkat choked on silence. It was a simple answer, one word would do. Why was it so hard?

"Yes."

Goodkat expected panic. He saw, instead, a resolve burning in the boy's eyes, and felt his hackles rise.

"Why didn't you then?"

_Shit, he would have to ask that._

He wondered why his ghost was so silent.

_I too am interested in this particular answer. I would not interrupt you for the world._

"I don't know."

"Are you going to kill me?"

"I don't know."

The boy looked vaguely shocked, and Goodkat almost chuckled. Finally, he had found something that shook the boy. He appeared to think for a moment, and looked back at Goodkat.

"Will you give me some warning if you decide?"

Of all the things Goodkat might have expected the boy to say, that was decidedly not one of them.

_You need to keep him Kitten; I haven't seen you this flustered in years. It builds character._

Goodkat decided it was time to take back control of the situation. He slowly slid off the ever-present sunglasses, and leaned across the table.

He felt the boy shiver as his exhalation brushed past his ear. He lowered his voice until he was almost growling.

"Would you really want me to kid? Do you really want to know that you're dead before I pull the trigger? Do you want a whisper in the dark before I slide a knife between your ribs? Do you expect an apology? You won't get one. You're alive on a whim. You can be dead just as easily. Nothing can prepare you for it, so I'll ask you again: Do you really want to know?"

The kid shivered in his seat, but looked back him defiantly. It tightened something in Goodkat's chest to know that he had been contracted to bring about his death.

"Yes."

The combination of the smoldering defiance in Henry's eyes and the knowledge of the boy's youth hit him like a sledgehammer between the eyes.

_Yes, he is very young to have such courage. _

_But is it courage or stupidity?_

"I'll warn you." The boy nodded, almost as if to say 'Thanks' and then thought better of it.

He motioned to the waitress for the check. He wanted to be safely ensconced in a hotel room before this migraine made landfall.

Somehow, he didn't think it would make much difference,


	5. Chapter 4

A/N: My most humble thanks to Colourful-Mess for whipping this into shape. Please review. And I obviously don't own Lucky Number Slevin. If I did do you think I'd have enough time to be here? Hell no! I'd be busy rearranging the boyos into all sorts of positions! Oh wait...

Chapter 4

Goodkat liked hotel rooms. They were wonderfully anonymous and his inner sociopath approved.

_You say that as if there is anything else in there Kitten. You ARE a sociopath, and he rattles about, quite alone. Your soul isn't exactly valuable real estate. _

He ignored the ghost, set his duffel on the floor, then removed and draped his coat over the back of the expensively upholstered armchair. He heard a sudden intake of breath.

_Shit, I forgot the guns._

He turned slowly and caught of glimpse of frightened pre-adolescent eyes in the mirror, the dramatic black of the 1911 in his shoulder rig, and the Browning Hi-Power tucked into the small of his back.

"Relax kid. If I were going to shoot you, I'd have done it already. No sense getting jumpy now."

The kid – _no, Henry_ – looked a little uncertain. Goodkat sighed, his head pounding. Unzipping the duffel, he tossed a t-shirt at him.

"Go shower."

Henry visibly fought the urge to scramble behind the other side of a locked door, walked across the room, entered the bathroom, shirt in hand, and, leaving the door cracked, started the water.

Goodkat sat heavily on the foot of the bed, his head in his hands. He did not recognize the man in the mirror opposite. He looked lost. Completely befuddled, as if he needed a drink.

_No, you need sleep, Kitten. It's been a few days and you're dulling your edge._

_Is THAT why he's still alive?_

_No, I think the two are unrelated. But you do need rest._

_I killed you and you're telling me to get some rest? We really did have a fucked up relationship._

_I was balancing out your self-destructive streak long before you decided to kill me. Old habits die hard. _

This last was said with a touch of apology, the kind children see in their parents' eyes before they condemn them to doses of particularly non-palatable medicine. It was close.

Because Goodkat hated sleeping. Not because of the faces of the people he killed haunted him or some such overly sentimental, romanticized-by-Hollywood rubbish. No, the simple truth was that Mr. Goodkat, world-class assassin and remorseless killer, was afraid of the dark.

He hated it, choked on the sheer suffocating non-light of it, even if it was simply behind his own eyelids. He would try to close his eyes and the panic would claw its way up his body and into his throat, ripping into his viscera with every excruciating inch.

_Oh, my Kitten. I'm so very sorry. I should have killed them sooner, and infinitely slower._

Goodkat recoiled from the voice, hearing both the pity and the silky undertones that once promised imminent violence on his behalf, the vehemence crackling over his skin like heat lightning.

Goodkat realized that the water had ceased rushing in the bathroom some indeterminate time ago and he looked up expectantly at the whisper of the door's hinges.

_He looks so...fragile. _

Standing there in his white t-shirt, the boy looked impossibly frail. And very, very nervous. Goodkat wondered what had him so spooked.

_As if sharing a hotel room with an assassin is a comfortable prospect. I shouldn't be surprised. _

_You never minded, mon chaton. _

_I was too grateful to mind. I've done nothing but – _

_Nothing but save his life. Now he's wondering why, much as you did._

_Oh SHIT! No, I wouldn't ever – _

_Careful what you say Kitten. _

_-Take advantage like that!_

Goodkat stood quickly, almost jumping from his seat on the bed. Henry took a step back, his eyes widening. Unsure where to move to appear non-threatening, he cast his eyes about the room desperately for a safe harbor.

_The chair!_

He turned it to face the door, visible across the expanse of the king-sized bed.

"Take the bed, kid. I'll sleep in the chair. I need to be able to see the door."

Henry walked slowly to the bed, keeping his eyes on his captor and crawled in. Goodkat tried not to notice that he put a pillow between them, as he got comfortable in his armchair.

"Are you going to turn out the light?"

"No kid."

"My name is Henry."

"Good night Henry."

"Good night…sir."

.


	6. Chapter 5

A/N: My most humble thanks to Colourful-Mess for whipping this into shape. Please review. And I obviously don't own Lucky Number Slevin. If I did do you think I'd have enough time to be here? Hell no! I'd be busy rearranging the boyos into all sorts of positions! Oh wait...

Chapter 5

He woke to the sound of a boy screaming.

At first, he thought it was himself as he clawed his way out of sleep. Goodkat came to himself, hyperventilating, took stock of his situation, and immediately threw himself from his chair to the bed and across, clapping his hand across the boy's mouth, afraid the shrieks would alert either neighbors or the hotel staff.

_Damn he's strong for his size._

Goodkat gritted his teeth as he tried to control the boy, bucking and thrashing underneath him. He realized suddenly that, far from making a bid for freedom, the kid was still asleep and dreaming.

_Now here is something you are familiar with._

It came to him in a flash of understanding..

_He's having a nightmare._

_Yes Kitten, you must wake him._

"Kid, hey kid! Wake up!" he bit out gruffly, shaking the boy, to no effect.

_Not like that, mon cher!_

The ghost sounded vaguely reproachful.

_Remember how I used to –_

_That is HARDLY appropriate! _

_When you were YOUNG, Kitten. He needs the warmth._

_Oh for God's sake!_

The muffled screams continued. He steeled himself, shifted to his side, and pulled the boy into his chest.

"Easy Henry. Wake up kid, you're dreaming."

He pitched his voice, sending it into a rarely used, slow, mellifluous slide. Goodkat found it useful; it was good for calming nervous horses, belligerent dogs and, apparently, nightmare-suffering boys. He kept speaking, and tried to ignore his mental discomfort.

The kid whimpered, his mindless thrashing growing slower as he slowly climbed his way out of the dark sticky place between panic and sleep.

"You're safe Henry, it's just me." He felt required to add "Goodkat"

_Like that is likely to comfort him_

_And yet he calms, mon chaton._

It was true, the boy was awake, and now cried noisily into Goodkat's shirt. When the tears slowed, the boy took a long shuddering breath.

"I want them dead."

_Damn those reporters._

Goodkat shivered at the bleakness in the boy's voice. It brought back half-remembered impressions-

_Cambric pressed against his cheek, a fall of black hair obscuring his vision like a silk curtain as a kiss was pressed softly into his nearly shaven head, and the soft aspirants of a vividly obscene Gallic curse brushed over his ears like a prayer._

The intensity of the recollection was such that Goodkat almost closed his eyes, Almost.

_How vivid your memories are, Kitten._

The voice whispered through his head, equal parts violent and wistful. Something sharp and ugly reared its head inside Goodkat's chest.

"Then we'll kill them."

The boy snapped his head up, and Goodkat caught his breath, not caring that Henry likely felt it as close as he was, tucked against Goodkat's chest.

_Dear God, he's beautiful_

And Henry cried beautifully, the iridescence of tear tracks silvering and softening the sharp angles of his face, until he looked almost delicate.

But the eyes gave lie to the image, this perfect manifestation of pure sorrow in all its raw, excruciating pain. They were full of rage and glittered with a malevolent luminosity that raised the hackles on Goodkat's neck: he recognized it. He knew that rage as he knew his own body, inside and out. And those hate-filled eyes searched his face like a hunter's.

"You mean that? We can kill them?"

_He shouldn't sound that excited. Children shouldn't be that excited about killing people! Should they? I don't know! How would I know?_

The voice cut through the rising panic in Goodkat's head, his borderline hysteria fed by his exhaustion. In the years to come he would always wonder how much of a part his self-inflicted insomnia played in his decision to avenge a man named Max, before he ceased caring and his actions revolved around a boy named Slevin.

_Tranquille, chaton._

Goodkat automatically began breathing deeper, clearing his head, responding without thought to the voice's imperative.

_Panic is the enemy of action…_

The voice finished the maxim he had drilled into Goodkat's head every day for thirteen years.

_And you have no room in this profession for panic, only action. He wants vengeance Kitten. He isn't a child anymore, and neither were you. So the burning question is, are you going to give it to him?_

"No Henry. We will kill them."

The boy nodded slowly, obviously finding on Goodkat's face whatever is was he sought.

"Good. Excuse me."

Goodkat found it oddly comforting that the boy's voice still shook, as he extricated himself from Goodkat's hold and slowly walked into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. And was suddenly and violently sick.

Goodkat lay back, staring at the ceiling, and listened to boy heave.

"There's a new toothbrush on the sink, kid."

He'd bought it when they stopped for gas.

"Thanks"

Goodkat winced at the raw sound.

"What do you want for breakfast, Henry?"

There was a scrabble of feet and more heaving. Goodkat winced.

_Oops. I didn't think…_

_Famous last words Kitten. That was ill-done of you._

Goodkat imagined that he could see the voice pinch the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger in exasperation. It was a look with which Goodkat was intimately familiar. He had often caused it.

_I do have a name, you know._

_I refuse to address a figment of my imagination that just happens to sound like you._

_You just did, Kitten._

Goodkat growled. And then heard the heaving in the bathroom cease.

There was a flush, a ragged sigh, and then a raspy-

"Anything but waffles."

Goodkat didn't know whether to laugh or cry as he picked up the phone and dialed for room-service.


	7. Chapter 6

Goodkat decided, eyeing the gently rolling hills of southeastern Virginia, that he would not mind owning a house in this part of the country.

_Yes, the land is good, if you wanted a vineyard. Good horse country too, Kitten._

_Yes, because my lifestyle lends itself _so _well to animal husbandry and horticulture. _

_You say that as if you actually had a life to style. I notice you did not deny wanting to pursue either of those. _

The ghost gave the mental equivalent of a disdainful sniff, tickling Goodkat's frontal lobe. Goodkat sighed, irritated at his uncanny ability to hear the carefully unsaid.

_Besides, are you really planning on killing people forever, mon cher?_

_It _is_ lucrative. _

_But hard on the soul._

_So says my wise mentor in the art of death. One of the perks of being a sociopath, remember? And you said yourself that I had no soul._

He didn't mean for the thought to taste petulant, but it did. The ghost's voice softened.

_I spoke in anger, Kitten. If you had no soul, the boy would be dead now, not decorating the passenger seat of a stolen vehicle with you promising to do violence on his behalf._

The boy in question interrupted the internal existential debate.

"Where are we going Goodkat?"

"Mr. Goodkat, or sir, if you please."

"Sorry sir. Where are we going Mr. Goodkat?"

At least he sounded contrite.

"We're going home."

He allowed himself a small smile of pure pleasure. He could never get used to the cold this far north. Out of the corner of his eye he would see Henry watching him warily.

"Where is home?"

"Where is home, _sir_!"

"Sorry! Where is home, sir?"

"I own an island."

"An island?"

Goodkat glared. Henry hurriedly tacked on a "Sir!"

"Yes, I own an island in the Keys."

Goodkat glanced over at the boy. His mouth hung open in an O of astonishment.

"Close your mouth Henry."

His mouth snapped obediently shut, almost as a reflex.

"I own a small island, about two miles square, in the Florida Keys. That is home, for me and for you, when I am not working," he said by way of explanation.

"Working, sir?"

"When I have a job."

Henry looked faintly nauseated. Goodkat saw the thoughts flicker across his face and connect, as the implications became clear.

_I am going to have to work on his poker face._

_Yes, he is dreadfully transparent._

_I wonder if he has the stomach for this._

_I wondered much the same about you. Rage goes a long way._

Henry took a shaky breath, swallowed almost convulsively.

"So how is the pay in your line of work, sir?"

It was the last question that Goodkat expected.

_He is beginning to make a habit of that, chaton. I like it. _

_I cannot believe that I've kept someone around long enough for him to have a habit of _anything_, much less one of annoying me._

_Quel petit, mais avec un tel courage. __Keep him, for sure. _

Goodkat almost laughed.

« It's very good kid. But then, 'The laborer is worth his hire', as they say."

"So you're good at it then? Killing people?"

He pondered for a moment and decided that honesty was the best policy.

"No kid, I'm not good."

He turned and looked Henry in the eye.

"I'm the best."


	8. Chapter 7

A/N: Ok, so I finally updated. Life's been a bit hectic, moving into a new apartment and getting a new puppy and medical issues and things. I'll try to post at least one chapter every other week, bare minimum. If there are any glaring grammatical or spelling errors, I apologise in advance. My beta has disappeared, and I am extra-eyes-less. Volunteers? Obviously, I don't own _Lucky Number Slevin_, please review...yadda yadda. Enjoy!

Chapter 7

The first thing that Goodkat did when he stepped into his room was to kick off his loafers and remove his socks. He inhaled the smell of orange-scented wood polish and leather, and released a deep sigh of total contentment, curling his toes into the thick Berber carpet.

_Such hedonism. How very…feline._

Goodkat let out a very unfeline growl.

_It was an observation, Kitten, not criticism._

_Only because you cannot criticize a taste you fostered._

_That is true about a great many of your _tastes, _cher_

Goodkat ignored the jibe and surveyed his surrounding with satisfaction. It was an intensely masculine room, everywhere the sheen of well-polished mahogany and cherry, the subtle gloss of rich leather, dotted with gleaming brass fittings.

Yes, it was all very masculine and old world. Except for the windows.

Sheer drapes skimmed the very edges of the floor-to-ceiling bay windows taking up five of the rooms six walls. Even with his eyes closed, Goodkat could have his precious light, tinted red through his eyelids. The wear on the center window's cushions betrayed, to the careful observer, Goodkat's propensity for sleeping in the full glare of the tropical noon sunshine.

The room's sole inhabitant felt the lure of the well-lit umber leather, inexorable as the moon's pull on the ocean. Goodkat padded softly across the room and, with a groan of near ecstasy, sank down on the sun-heated leather. The sensation of each muscle releasing, sequentially, every ounce of tension was nearly orgasmic, and Goodkat's eyes rolled back in his head. His breathing evened as the heat of the seat radiated stored sunshine into his bones.

He woke as the – Henry – touched his arm, coming fully, sharply awake.

The boy's startled gasp fluttered into the corners of the room like frightened doves.

_Shit. I scared him. Again._

_Not as badly, this time, however. And if you had been elsewhere, he would have been studying the spotless rifling of your 1911, up close and personal._

_True. _

The boy shuffled shifted uncertainly, the late afternoon sunshine transforming his hair into a cognac amber nimbus around his face, indistinct and golden like sunshine, too terribly bright to look at for long.

_My, you're quite poetic upon first waking. _

_You knew that._

_Well yes, I distinctly remember you rhapsodizing many a morning about my spectacular – _

_RENARD! _

_-eyes! Lord, Kitten, but you have a _terribly_ dirty mind. Whatever gave you the idea I was speaking of something…risqué?_

Goodkat could hear the smirk. It irked and endeared, all at once.

_Experience with your perverse nature, perhaps?_

_Mmm, yes. Do go on? My perversions? What experiences in particular? _

His ghost purred and Goodkat, rattled, cleared his sleep-raspy throat.

"Was there something you needed Henry?"

The self-satisfied chuckle reverberated inside his skull, and he was irritated by the realization it still caused a distinct and uncomfortable tightening in his trousers, even in his own head.

_Fraidy-Kitten._

Goodkat fought the Pavlovian urge to growl.

He might frighten the- Henry. And he didn't want to frighten Henry. Again.

So he stifled the growl and shifted to hide his arousal from his adolescent house guest.

It was going to be a long night.


End file.
